Holiday part 1

Instead of putting all pictures from this Summer holiday together in one long blog post, let's divide them into separate posts per events. That ought to save me some time and prevent me from postponing it until the next holiday.

We spent a few days in the nice rural counties in the South-East of England. While staying their, our friends S & O took us to one of their favourite Oxford restaurants: the Trout (map), situated in a lovely place near a water mill and a river. But of course we don't care about scenery at a food blog. We care about the food!

Let's state upfront that I didn't take any pictures of my own food. Why? Well, the food of the other three in our company was served first. So, while waiting for my course, I took pictures of the other three courses. When finally my food arrived, I was so hungry that I immediately dived in, without the slightest notion of taking a picture (the wait probably took only 1-2 minutes, but seeing the other food and having whetted our appetites with some bread and olives I guess I let myself go). For myself, I had ordered deepfried cod in Peroni beer batter with chips and pea puree and a tartare sauce, which in itself was good because it was prepared with fresh ingredients; the cod itself was a little tasteless unfortunately.

Now, for the pictures:

O had a burger with gherkin, mustard mayo, cheese, relish, extra bacon and chips.

S had a pasta dish, strozzapreti, with artichokes, olives, tomatoes, rocket and goats cheese

N had a ribeye steak, with balsamic roast onions, rocket, horseradish, parmesan and chips.

Sailing

At our annual sailing trip, this time also including Big-L, along with S, E and J, we usually don't care too much about dinner, since the outdoors will always make you hungry. We started the trip at friday evening and ended sunday in the afternoon. The weather was beautiful (even hot) and it was very nice and all, etc. -- but of course you're interested in the food we ate during that trip!

Well, that friday we had some fries with mayo and croquettes. Because there were Endless Amounts of Fries, we had plenty leftover. During that dinner and also afterwards, Big-L had a very influential role in halving the beer supply for the weekend. Later that evening, probably when the effects of that role had kicked in, he specifically requested for the cold fries leftovers to be served for breakfast the next morning, on a sandwich, with peanutbutter. The rest of us, not having had such an influential role, promised to remind him of that the next morning.

So, here it is, the proudly presented Cold Fries Sandwich with Peanutbutter:

Unfortunately, I cannot describe the gustatory experience this culinary curiosity has led to, but I'm sure Big-L himself will want to comment on that. We might, however, draw some conclusions from the fact that he withdrew after just a single bite and made us promise to stop him from expressing silly wishes after having had a few beers.

Ah, the joy of beer-influenced decisions.

The next day, we had macaroni and cheese, with some ketchup and diced ham.

After boiling some macaroni, we added two bags of grated cheese and a tin of diced ham, along with a tin of tomatoes. Unfortunately, the pan was too small to add another tin of diced ham (which while waiting for the macaroni to boil, started to decolor -- and the cooking only took 7 minutes). Luckily, the two bags of grated cheese did fit in. However, because of the heat of those days, the cheese had already started to melt beforehand and had formed a large lump. Because of that, it wasn't easy to make it melt and mix it evenly throughout the pasta. Big-L and S, being the hard-working sailors, were offered portions containing the most of that lump. Strangely, they didn't quite enjoy it, just chowing away on yellowy unshapely somewhat cheesy lumps which they felt was directly clogging their arteries and making their stomach ache. They made us promise to never do this again too. Well, E, J and I did enjoy our portions (which might have had something to do with us missing out on that cheesy experience). E and I promised to eachother that when we would be making a boating trip ourselves someday without people complaining about our cooking, we would gladly eat this every day!

All in all, this trip turned out to be great, however, for our next trip, we will probably have to provide for a lock on the beer supply, a cooling device and other dinner options.

I can't wait for Big-L's comments on his culinary experience!

Two Belgians

Here is a post about a recent visit again to local restaurant De Twee Belgen (The Two Belgians). We went there last Ascension Day. No lengthy stories about what we ate there, just pictures and short descriptions.

Amuse bouche was a small cup of tomatosoup with a cheese twister.

Every time I eat here, I just have to have the shrimp croquettes as a starter. I'm sure they have other items on the menu, but come one, who'd order something else when you can have shrimp croquettes? Especially when they're the best in town.

Okay, maybe N's lactose intolerance made her choose oxtail stock with ravioli, stuffed with duck foie gras. Apparently, very good. Not as good as shrimp croquettes of course.

Since the asparagus season was in full bloom, we both ordered the special of asparagus, served with a poached egg and fabulous ham of a special kind of pork I've already forgotten. Served on the side were the infamous Flemish fries (whole different league altogether than french fries), though a bit on the salty side. And apparently some salad.

Service was swift since we had mentioned we were on a tight schedule because we wanted to see The Fantastic Mr. Fox, so we were amply in time at the cinema. Afterwards we had a drink at a bar and after that we even went to the fair, where I won N a stuffed bee, we had cotton candy and sugar coated nuts and I even lost some bucks on a dexterity game where you had to try to win a prize by making a stick push through some tight holes (sorry, I can't think of a better explanation). All in all, it was a great day!

Rome

Well then, here we are again. A lot of things have happened lately, not only foodwise. However, as usual I've been too damn lazy to update this blog. It's actually like putting together a photo album after a vacation. You know you should do it and it'll bring back nice memories while doing it, but somehow you can't make yourself do it. That's laziness for you! Well, for me then actually.

One of those things that have happened lately, is we've been taken to Rome for five days, by my parents to celebrate their 35th wedding anniversary, all expenses covered. Yay! Thanx mom & dad!
Having been to Rome before and having seen a lot of cultural things that previous time, now I had a chance of getting involved more with the culinary experiences. And boy, did we have some!

We stayed at Hotel Embassy. When we arrived there in the evening, the front desk clerk, a funny 60-year-old man, made sure we would eat a good meal and made a reservation at a small restaurant nearby, at the Via Volturno.

That night we were for the first time exposed to Rome's fine, pure, honest food. Pictured above is some of my starter, ham and mozzarella. Bread and (uncooked, unshelled) broad beans were served just like that, alongside some bitter-sharp olives. The saltimbocca was great.

The next morning, we had breakfast for the first time at our hotel. To my surprise, the Italians didn't serve savoury things for breakfast. Instead, just sweet things, like this cornetto stuffed with chocolate cream. Mmm! Perfect for a sweet tooth like me. Less great if you're more into savoury things, like N or others of our company. And to be honest, the fourth day it started to get a little boring for me too.

That's why, on that fourth day, I went looking for tramezzini, which are crustless sandwiches, stuffed with great things. Pictured below is Pepy's Bar at the Piazza Barberini, which bore the very inspired name Bar Berini. Right.

Nonetheless, they had some nice sandwiches.

This one is actually from the gelato shop SquisitCook next door where they mainly served icecream, but if you don't tell anyone we can keep that a secret. It was filled with some kind of cheese and ham. Mmm!

Speaking of icecream, Italians are - of course - the very masters of said sweetness. All over Rome you'll stumble upon gelato shops. It is said each Roman has their own favourite shop. The one most famous however, according to our travel guide books, was Giolitti, at the Via degli Uffici del Vicario, in the vicinity of the Pantheon (and a little further away, the Trevi fountain). If your guide books won't guide you there, the lines of tourists waiting for their turn might guide you.

Again, the picture above isn't an icecream from that shop, but it's secretly from another place, also very much worth going to: Ciuri Ciuri, at the Via Leonina. The reason I went there (dragging N alongside with me) was that I wanted to have tasted cannoli at least once when having been in Rome. Reportedly, Ciuri Ciuri served the best ones in Rome.

A cannolo is a deep fried roll of some kind of sweet dough, in this case (the Siciliana Orientale variety, if I remember it correctly), stuffed with a ricotta cheese filling and dipped in chocolate chips.

My.

Gosh.

It was great! It was the size of a can of coke, stuffed entirely with its extremely rich, cream-cheese like ricotta stuffing. After that, I was stuffed.

Dino & Toni's

This little trattoria deserves special mentioning: Dino & Toni's, at the Via Leone IV. When we had visited St. Peter's basilica at Vatican city, we had lunch here, encouraged to do so by our copy of Lonely Planet's Rome guide. You're served by one of the two brothers who will make you feel like you're the family they haven't seen in years. There's no menu, but you're just served food, the way it's supposed to go in trattoria's.

Antipasti consisted of cold cuts of meat......deep fried potato croquettes, pizzadough stuffed with gorgonzola and chard, some funny little deep fried what seemed like custard, apparently some pizzadough with eggyolks and more pizza. It made for a very fine lunch at the last day in the city of Rome, where you get true value for your money.



All in all, like in the rest of Italy (as I've been told) food in Rome isn't just a necessity to keep you sustained, it's an experience that will undoubtedly enhance your holiday. Beware though, especially in the touristic parts of the city, for high food prices. Going the extra mile for spots like Dino & Toni's will pay. If you're going there, enjoy your stay!

Lunch at Doppio

My colleague M and me got together for lunch this saturday (or actually, for breakfast). Both being from Indonesia, we originally planned to go to Indonesian restaurant Pakarena, but unfortunately it was closed (even though their website states they should be opened on saturdays, the sign on the door seemed to exclude saturday as an opening day - strange, considering the fact that most people would eat out on saturdays, I'd think).

So, as for an alternative, we went to coffee place Doppio.

I had the "Lunch Complete", which consisted of some freshly squeezed orange juice, capuccino and a three-layered grilled-cheese sandwich with mozzarella, italian ham (serrano), tomatoes, salsa and pecorino, served with a fresh lime-yoghurt dressing.


In Holland, we like to call a grilled cheese sandwich, a "tosti", just like the french like to call it a "croque-monsieur". Molten mozzarella was ooooo-zing out of the tosti, with nice flavours from the ham and tomato combining very well. The lime-yoghurt dressing cut wonderfully through the richness of the mozzarella. My only complaint would be, that it's too small.


M had a roll with turkey breast and a honey-mustard dressing, alongside a separately ordered OJ and capuccino. A very smart choice, considering her plan to stick to her diet.

All was well!

Even though Doppio officially doesn't qualify as a lunchroom (coffee being their main specialty, despite the fact that the place exists for a mere three years, it had already won a national coffee-test in 2008), they serve some good quality food to go with your coffee. I'd say they easily meet the quality of a place like Silo Today, which I posted on previously. They're situated near the edge of the city centre, so it's easy to see why it's always relatively crowded.

Nevertheless, N and S always prefer to go to Coffee United, because they think their coffee tastes better, so I guess this would have been one of my few visits to another coffee place for now.

Burger King Mountain Burgers

At long last! After some Blogspot problems, I'm finally able to post a small review on the Burger King Mountain Burgers. They're the temporarily available trio of burgers at the BK over here. According to the commercials shown on TV, they're supposed to celebrate some kind of rugged outdoor life. You know, for those occasions when you're at the office and feel like making a campfire, or feel like canoe'ing down that flight of stairs because it resembles a river.

A and me went to sample two of the three varieties. A had the Blue Cheese variety, and for myself, I chose the Rocky Cheese. The third burger that completes the trio would be the Smoky Barbecue.

As so often is the case, the real deal is a far cry from the grand version pictured in the ads. In this case, the disappointment was not in the flavour, but in the size. The ads and also the pics shown on the menu displayed in the restaurant, made it look like the burgers would be Whopper-sized. Not so. Their diameter was that of a regular burger.


This one, shown above, is the Blue Cheese variety. It didn't have actual blue cheese on it, but instead came with a blue-cheese-sauce. A will post his thoughts on this one in the comments below.



The one shown here, is the Rocky Cheese. Flavourwise, it was A-okay! Each Mountain Burger comes with two patties. Then, on mine, there's a slice of fried cheese on top. That is topped with some kind of barbecue sauce, a slice of tomato and some lettuce. It makes for a very fine burger. The cheese is of a very lightly flavoured kind and provides more of an extra protein-boost than an additional flavour. It combines well though, with the overall experience. The bbq-sauce is very thin, it ran off the sandwich. It has a slight pinch of heat to it, which in turn helps spice up the overall burger-experience.

All in all, despite the fact that the burger comes smaller than expected, it's a nice one. I wouldn't mind ordering it again. One last note, both positive and negative, on the fries. Negative: I ordered Twister Fries, but I got regular ones. I didn't feel like going back to the counter to ask for the ones I ordered but instead just ate the regular ones. Positive: even the regular fries are so much better than the McDonald's variety (I won't even mention the soggy KFC ones). The crust is very thin and seems extra crispy. Twister Fries are even better than that, as they not only come twisted, but also with some additional flavour-enhancing spices. One might beg to differ (N does), but in my opinion these are the best fries.

Turbo Go Go

Last wednesday, A and me sampled half the menu of asian restaurant Turbo Go Go. Despite my intention to take my camera with me, I forgot. So, I only had my phone cam to take some pictures. And they turned out to be overexposed, out of focus... etc.

So, this friday, I decided to sample some of their sushi, of which we only managed to have a few because of all of the other things we had to try.

For 15 bucks, they give you a selection of 24 pieces of sushi. These include simple ones with cucumber and some pickle, salmon, shrimp...

...omelette, and that tofu-like stuff they use to envelope a piece of rice. All very nice.

However, I wasn't that fond of the tobiko-variety, with surimi, avocado and crab eggs on the outside. It was less tasty than expected.

And on that bombshell, I guess, I'll end this crappy blog post, but what more is there to say about sushi? I guess the only sushi worth writing about extensively, would be sushi of bad quality. But then, who would sell crappy sushi? Well, perhaps if it'll become more ubiquitous than it is now, lesser gods may step up to the scene.